The burden of identifying a culprit in the growing volume of attacks on US satellites—commercial, civil, or military—will fall to the military under a revised national space policy, according to Air Force Col. Anthony Russo, who heads the space division at US Strategic Command. At a media roundtable this week in Washington, Russo said the new policy, which has been in the works for more than a year, might surface within the next few months. He explained that the nature of an attack would probably determine whether DOD or State Department or other government entity would respond. Not all attacks are meant to destroy the asset out of hand. For instance, Russo described a jamming-for-money attack on a US commercial satellite. The company paid.
The use of a military counter-drone laser on the southwest border this week—which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas—will be a “case study” on the complex web of authorities needed to employ such weapons near civilian areas and the consequences of agencies…
